Affordable Housing vs. Gentrification

Third Avenue in East Harlem, where many new luxury buildings are in the process of being built.

1 / 7

Mayor Bill de Blasio has a plan that he says will preserve economically diverse neighborhoods in New York City, significantly and permanently increase the affordable-housing supply and create a more attractive streetscape. In community meetings across the city, New Yorkers are finally having their chance to say whether they agree with him.

The winds of “no” are blowing strong.

The public-review process is moving ahead on two rezoning programs that are central components of Mr. de Blasio’s promise to build or preserve 200,000 affordable apartments over 10 years. One would require that new residential buildings in rezoned neighborhoods include apartments permanently set aside for tenants paying below-market rates. The other changes the rules on height and density so that more housing can be squeezed into the available space

The administration says that it’s impossible to halt market forces in a city where housing demand so grossly exceeds supply but that the market can be harnessed for good. It says that a smart rezoning plan — along with an array of other initiatives, like aggressive legal help to protect tenants from harassment and eviction — can help save East Harlem, East New York, Flushing and a dozen other neighborhoods from going the way of gentrification as Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Long Island City have.

Residents in the neighborhoods due for rezoning are wary, to say the least. A meeting of Community Board 11 in East Harlem this month was typical of gatherings across the boroughs. It began with a consultant’s slide show that seemed designed to stupefy anyone not steeped in the worlds of real estate and zoning. Except the room was full of renters, many of whom knew exactly what the man was talking about, or thought they did.

To many in East Harlem and other parts of the city where the working class and poor scrape by, construction means disruption, which inevitably means gentrification and dislocation. The rent always goes up, but they fear that the zoning changes will only make it rise faster and higher, inevitably making them exiles from their own city.

Some at the meeting were fatalistic; others were sharply critical. Andrew Padilla, a filmmaker from the neighborhood, stood up and read a long indictment of the city’s plans. Mandatory zoning would create far too few apartments to meet the need. And they will be doled out by lottery. Even for the lucky few, there are no guarantees.

“All you win is the privilege of applying for an apartment,” Mr. Padilla said. “Do you have perfect credit? A spotless criminal record? Citizenship? Political connections? Without these things you will not sign a lease.”

Community boards are supposed to vote on the zoning proposals by the end of November. Their votes are advisory; the issue will also go before the borough presidents, the borough boards, the City Planning Commission and, finally, the City Council.

Community Board 11 voted the plans down on Monday. About two dozen other community boards have done the same. The administration says it understands people’s resistance to change in neighborhoods they love. But it insists that its plan offers the last best chance to turn back the tide of luxury apartments and sky-high rents.

With some frustration, the mayor’s aides say that if people only understood that the zoning changes they are seeking will be manageable and incremental, and preserve a more livable city, they would win more support in the neighborhoods. They predict that they will win the vote that counts, in the City Council.

Mr. de Blasio has built a powerful case. But the disparate forces of opposition — those who don’t want any change in their neighborhoods, those who don’t want affordable housing and those who want only affordable housing — are powerful, too.

The mayor makes a persuasive case for his multipronged strategy of building a more affordable New York through greater height and density. His challenge is getting unnerved New Yorkers, for whom the rent is already too high, to believe it.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Affordable Housing vs. Gentrification . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe